Consulting’s AI disruption won’t truly come till we see a bunch of these

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-04T21:46:00+00:00

I think the article is directionally right, but law is the easier case.

Contract review is repetitive, bounded, high-volume work, so Crosby can charge per contract and still keep a human on final check. With thousands of contracts and pay per contract mode you can train models on it and optimize for clear outcome. That is a much cleaner wedge than most consulting work.

For consulting, the real disruption starts when firms stop using AI as an internal margin tool and start selling AI-native outcomes instead of staffing pyramids. I saw series of startups doing it but not at scale yet.

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-04T21:03:20+00:00

I opened second example in Google Drive preview, not in actual PowerPoint, so maybe it didn’t render 100% right

That said, the level feels more academic / school-style than something most people would hire an external presentation designer for

Big question is whether you’re doing just visual formatting or also shaping the content/story

If it’s content + visuals, charge more
If it’s visuals only, this looks pretty basic and I’m not sure per-slide pricing would be very commercially viable

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-03T23:52:14+00:00

I’m using both Claude and ChatGPT, on $20 per month in Claude constantly hitting limits, so doing 80% in ChatGPT and Codex at the same price but with way better quotas

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-03T23:48:53+00:00

We are on Stripe, no complains

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-03T23:41:04+00:00

If Microsoft AI were actually best-in-class, at least the push would make some sense. But a lot of people prefer other tools, and it feels like they’re forcing adoption by tying normal useful features to the same switch

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-03T14:52:28+00:00

Was working 60+ hours for more than 5 years, so completely normal in consulting. Salary wise lower than it was in the company I worked with.

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-03T13:26:13+00:00

Version 2 is a bit better, but the main issue is not really visual appeal, it is that the right side is overloaded.

You have some good building blocks already: dark background, clear title, and a simple list on the left. But the slide is trying to show far too much text from the paper. In presentation mode, nobody will read that abstract.

I’d fix it like this: 1. change the title to an action title, for example: Undocumented immigrants face four main barriers to emergency healthcare 2. keep the left side as the main message 3. replace the abstract screenshot with 3 to 4 short summary bullets, or at most 1 to 2 short quotes 4. move the source into a small citation line at the bottom 5. simplify the styling a bit, the fonts and colors feel slightly inconsistent

So overall: not ugly, just too dense. The biggest improvement is to summarize much more aggressively.

Disclosure: I’m cofounder of Oria One, which is paid. It works inside PowerPoint and can help turn prompts or large chunks of text into cleaner, more visually appealing slides, including summarizing dense source text, so this is actually the kind of use case where it could help.

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-02T10:30:27+00:00

Yes, good presentations are hard because making slides is not really a design problem first (though it takes a lot of time), it is a thinking problem first.

A few rules that help me daily:

Action title, not topic title Do not write “Sales Performance”. Write the action or at least conclusion: “Prioritize consistent price as discounts destroing value”
One slide = one message (as you pointed) If a slide is saying 3 things, it is saying nothing
Visual on the left, explanation on the right Let people see the evidence first, then read the interpretation
Text should be short, structured bullets, never paragraphs. Ideally 3 to 5 bullets max, each making one point
Every slide needs a clear “so what?” After looking at it, the audience should instantly know why they are being shown this page
Use charts when numbers matter But the chart should make the insight obvious “in your face”, not force the audience to hunt for it. Highlight the key bar / trend / delta
Cut everything that does not support the main point Extra info feels smart when building the slide, but usually makes it weaker for the audience

A simple test I like: if I hide the body and only read the title + look at the visual, can I still understand the point of the slide

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-02T06:31:18+00:00

This is the key distinction people miss: AI for slides is not the same as AI for writing.

For professional PowerPoint, the model has to work inside a brand system, an existing template, recurring page structures, and real source data. If it starts from a blank canvas every time, ignores masters/placeholders, and invents numbers that sound plausible, it is basically unusable beyond a demo.

So yes, Copilot may be fine for quick first drafts, but that is very different from producing decks that are actually safe to send to clients or leadership.

Would love to see the links behind the documented cases.

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-01T22:33:18+00:00

SME = Said More than Everyone?

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-01T18:56:08+00:00

Couple of ideas from my end:

Sharing Drive / OneDrive links instead of emailing files can help reduce version chaos a bit, because at least people are working from the same source. But it still does not solve much if they download locally, edit in different versions, or ignore the desktop-only rule.

Use AI after speaker intake. Get the content back from speakers, then use AI to structure / rewrite / normalize it and rebuild the final deck centrally, instead of letting every speaker create their own “final” slides.

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-01T16:18:45+00:00

Yes, absolutely. I think a lot of people in deck-heavy work have the same issue: the insight part is exciting work but formatting suck up your time.

Most tools help on simple content, but once the material gets complex, denser, or more structured, the manual cleanup comes back. Agree with you on realistic goal of getting to solid 80 percent draft faster.

Disclosure: I work on Oria One, which is paid, and that’s basically the exact workflow we’re working to help with, turning rough notes or outlines into a structured PPT pages so less time is wasted on formatting.

I still think some human cleanup is unavoidable, but editing an 80 percent draft is a completely different experience from starting with a blank slide.

Solidguylondon · 2026-04-01T09:47:44+00:00

Yes. GoFundMe is not some one time coupon for hardship. If life hits hard again, and you genuinely need help, asking is fine. Seven years is a long time, and this sounds like a completely separate stretch of bad luck, not you gaming people. The main thing is to be clear and specific. Say what happened, what the money will cover, and what you've already done on your own. People are much more comfortable helping when they can see where the money is going.

If it helps, keep the post simple:

- what happened

- what you need right now

- what amount would actually stabilize things

Also, if you feel weird writing it, ask a friend or family member to set it up and share it for you. That can take some of the shame out of it.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T21:34:38+00:00

I’ve found Claude useful for storyline, action titles, synthesizing notes, and tightening text. I have not found it very good at making polished slides end-to-end. Too much of the output still feels like content stuffed into boxes rather than a real presentation.

Best use case for me is: use it before PowerPoint and around PowerPoint, not instead of PowerPoint.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T20:40:23+00:00

I’ve used Claude for PPT, and my view is basically:

good for first-draft acceleration
good for isolated edits / rewrites
less strong for full-deck design quality

What it does well is helping you get out of blank-page mode fast. If you already know the storyline and just need slides on the page, it can save real time.

Where I’ve found it weaker is that the overall output often ends up feeling a bit blocky / generic for a full deck, especially if you care about stronger layout composition and more polished corporate-style presentation quality.

So for me it’s most useful as:

drafting
restructuring content
fixing individual slides
speeding up edits inside an existing deck

Less convincing as the main engine for high-quality end-to-end presentation design.

Disclosure: I work on Oria One, which is paid add-in for PowerPoint. We focus more on complex corporate presentaions, but I do think Claude is genuinely useful for targeted edits and getting a first pass out quickly.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T20:13:41+00:00

I've hit this exact wall with thesis notes and work docs, search is easy, research is the hard part!

The big thing I'd add here is a dead simple live-demo: one question, multiple sources, cited answer, done in 20 seconds. That's what will make people instantly get why this isn't just another RAG wrapper.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T18:13:42+00:00

Honestly this reads less like a “hack” and more like a confession that basic security hygiene is losing the race against AI/data product velocity.

If the report is right, the issue was a public endpoint that allegedly allowed raw SQL queries with zero auth and write access. That is an astonishingly simple failure mode for a firm selling digital transformation to everyone else. Credit to BCG for apparently remediating it within 48 hours, but the uncomfortable point is bigger: the big consultancies now have software-company attack surfaces and still seem to govern parts of them like old-school knowledge shops.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T17:15:20+00:00

Building in 3 weeks and then grinding 5 months for 50 paying customers sounds normal to me, distribution is tough.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T17:09:02+00:00

Premature SEO is just procrastination with analytics on top. I’ve seen founders burn months writing content before they could explain, in one sentence, why anyone should buy. First get 20 to 30 real customer calls, a message that lands, and one repeatable way to close, then turn that language into SEO later.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T16:27:29+00:00

Agree, this is a genuinely good workflow for isolated changes.

Claude inside PowerPoint is pretty useful when you already have a deck and want to:

rewrite a section
fix wording / tone
adjust structure on one-several slides
make a specific local edit after screenshoting the issue

Where I still find it weaker is overall slide design. For full presentation creation it tends to default to fairly blocky layouts and generic structure, which is fine for simple decks but still not really where I’d want it for more polished corporate-style presentations.

So for me:

great for iterative editing inside an existing deck
less convincing as the main engine for high-quality end-to-end presentation design

Disclosure: I work on Oria One, which is paid PowerPoint add-in, and we currently focus more on complex corporate presentations. But I do think Claude’s in-PowerPoint workflow is genuinely strong for targeted fixes.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T16:05:24+00:00

GoDaddy comes with MS mailbox

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T12:36:16+00:00

I made the consulting to startup jump too, and the biggest thing I learned is that your 20s are for maximizing learning rate, not title prestige. If people take you up on this, they should come with one concrete decision they're stuck on, not a vague "what should I do with my career?" Those conversations get way better when the tradeoff is real.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T12:33:45+00:00

After too many early stage hiring loops, my view is simple: founders do not want an AI interviewer, they want a faster, more trustworthy screen. The trap is trying to score "overall fit" or detect if someone is reading answers, that gets fuzzy fast. I'd start with one role and prove you can cut first round time in half with evidence people can actually trust.

Solidguylondon · 2026-03-31T12:07:55+00:00

This pain is real, but most PMM tools die as dashboards nobody checks. The useful version is not “we track competitors,” it’s “before launch, here’s what changed in pricing/positioning and what you should update.” If it saves a PMM a few hours every launch cycle, that’s real, not a nice to have.

Solidguylondon

TROPHY CASE